Dayl, at left, having tea with Buddhist monk near Hue circa 1993

Dayl Wise, co-founder of the Post Traumatic Press, grew up in White Plains, New York. He was Christian-raised and a respecter of the Ten Commandments—especially “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” However, dyslexia made reading difficult, so it was no surprise that he dropped out of college after his first semester in 1969. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted and sent to Vietnam.

He says that he will never forget the wall of heat that met him upon arriving in Vietnam. “It literally took my breath away.” During his first week, he was sent on practice maneuvers to a rubber plantation on the outskirts of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).  Dayl found the organic smell of the place almost erotic. The lush green plant life, particularly the amazing ferns, the colorful birds, the rock apes, and the high jungle canopies, lent an otherworldly dimension to his American-conditioned sensibility. Dayl’s in-country assignment began at Phuoc Vinh, a town 30 miles northwest of Saigon, at the U.S. Army firebase. The Army made him a recon leader of an eight-man squad attached to the 1st Air Cavalry Division. Many times his team walked point for an 80-man line company. Over the course of the next seven months, he was sent on countless patrols throughout Vietnam—and also Cambodia.

Early one morning in late November 1970, small arms fire pinned Dayl’s team down. Immediately to his right, the unit’s South Vietnamese scout was killed. Then Dayl was wounded in the left leg. He was rescued by helicopter and taken to hospital at Bien Hoa. From there, he was flown to Japan and on to St. Albans, Queens. Dayl spent six months recuperating in the hospital. It took several surgeries of bone grafts and the insertion of a metal plate before he could be sent home in a wheelchair.

The Vietnam experience pushed Dayl towards the anti-war movement. As soon as he was ambulatory, he threw out his uniform and his medals. Oddly, his service to his country helped him overcome his former learning challenge. During stretches of prolonged boredom, he turned to reading anything he could get his hands on, and gradually he overcame his dyslexia. This stood him in good stead when he returned to college, and he received a degree in engineering. He worked as a consulting engineer until the early 1990s. Around this time, he was watching a CNN report on the first Gulf War, and he suffered a flashback. In the news report, he saw a helicopter being deployed, and suddenly the memory of the sweet acrid smell of aviation fuel came flooding back. He visited a veteran’s hospital to see a psychiatrist. His healing took a unique turn when he was offered the chance to deliver hospital supplies to Vietnam. It was after this visit that Vietnam changed for him from being a war zone to a country and a people.

In the late 1990s, Dayl was introduced to his future wife, the poet Alison Koffler. In 1998 when friends suggested visiting the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. Dayl was ambivalent. To him, memorials always seem to celebrate war, but he decided to go after Alison suggested that he journal his experiences. Soon thereafter, he began to keep a daily poetry log. The word gradually got out, and in 1999 he was invited to read some of his poems at Johnny O’s in Bronx, NY. He typed up the ten poems and created a chapbook which he handed out after the reading. He found the experience very therapeutic. This was the start of Post Traumatic Press.  The press’s mission is to “give voice to veterans and noncombatants whose lives have been affected by the trauma of war.” Dayl and his wife, Alison, divide their time between the Bronx and Woodstock. His press has started to move beyond its original mission and now publishes the work of contemporary poets. In March, the press released Gretchen Primack’s Kind. The book will launch in Woodstock, NY, via a Golden Notebook-sponsored reading at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts on Saturday, May 11, at 6:30 p.m.

As a teenager, Dayl used to fret about things, but Vietnam taught him that every day is beautiful. He returned to the States with the simple realization that it is important to “live in the moment.”

~ Weston Blelock